NFL columnist, Myers, to talk book, ‘the catch’
Gary Myers sat in the press box for the 1982 NFC championship game when the Dallas Cowboys played the San Francisco 49ers. With 51 seconds remaining in the game, he witnessed one of the greatest plays in NFL history.
The 49ers trailed the Cowboys 27-21 to the Dallas Cowboys in the closing seconds of the game. At the Cowboys’ six-yard line, 49er quarterback Joe Montana took the snap. He rolled right and sent the ball flying into the corner of the end zone near Dwight Clark, a 49er wide receiver.
Clark leaped and caught the pass for the game-winning touchdown. San Francisco won the game 28-27. The team later went on to defeat the Cincinnati Bengals 26-21 in Super Bowl XVI.
‘The catch’ – Clark’s leap in the end zone – sent the San Francisco 49ers to its first of five Super Bowls over a course of 14 years. It later prompted Myers to write a book about the catch’s lingering effect.
Myers, a Syracuse University graduate, NFL columnist and TV show host, will return to his alma mater Thursday to speak and sign copies of his book, ‘The Catch,’ at 3 p.m. in Newhouse III room 141.
‘The Catch’ details how one improbable play sparked years of Super Bowl success for the 49ers and a series of near misses for the Cowboys.
In that moment in the press box, Myers said he knew the catch’s significance for that game, but never could have predicted its long-term effect and what would come for the 49ers.
‘At that point in time, all we knew was that the 49ers were going to the Super Bowl,’ Myers said. ‘Right then, we didn’t know that it would start the dynasty and that the Cowboys would never reach the Super Bowl during the 1980’s.’
Myers said he felt that writing about the catch was the perfect way to parallel the Cowboys teams of the 1980s – never to reach a Super Bowl – with the play that would send the 49ers to five championships in that same decade.
Since 1989, Myers has been the NFL columnist at The New York Daily News while also serving as a co-host on the YES Network’s ‘This Week in Football’ for nine years. Before YES, Myers worked on HBO’s ‘Inside the NFL,’ where he provided reports on all the NFL teams.
Writing the book allowed Myers to reconnect with many of the players he covered during his time in Dallas. At the same time, it also allowed him to work with Montana, who wrote the forward for the book.
‘I’ve always had a very good relationship with Joe Montana,’ Myers said.
After more than 30 years in the business, Myers has seen many games and plays, but the lasting power of the catch, he said, is in its name.
‘Very few plays in NFL history are only named ‘The Catch’,’ Myers said.
Published on October 28, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Contact Chris: cjiseman@syr.edu | @chris_iseman
